An urn of flowers by our church doors: a mix of pine, cedar, nandina, and magnolia. Beautiful in its simplicity of evergreen; beautiful in its complexity of textures and its life-giving infant pine cones and fruitful berries. Beautiful, too, in the generosity of five families who contributed the cuttings. A suitable image for the readings today, the Feast of the Holy Family.
The Feast of the Holy Family was inserted into the Roman rite calendar in 1921 as a way to counter the breakdown of the family in modern times. The “Holy Family” is Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.
At this time of year when family life and family time are center-stage, Mother Church uses this teachable moment of Christmas to remind us that OUR families are meant to be schools for learning how to love. Today’s readings give us some measures of the “classes” in that school of love.
Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
Sirach is a book found in the Catholic Bible, but not in Protestant Bibles. It is part of the “wisdom literature” that developed within the Jewish faith in the centuries before Christ. It was likely written about 200 years before Jesus’ birth. It represents well the standards of family relationships when Jesus was born. Those basic standards of “honor” and “authority” remain standards for healthy family relationships today.
A therapy mentor of mine once said, “No child wants to be the latest thing in family strength.” Today’s reading from Sirach talks about God’s plan for families: they are a hierarchy, and the adults are in charge. They are responsible for and in charge of children. They, as children of a previous generation, are also responsible for their parents as they age.
Throughout history (and currently in many cultures) God’s economy created multi-generation households where three or four generations lived together. Children, parents, and grandparents lived in one home—caring for each other. There were built in babysitters and built in activities that kept aging members of families actively engaged in loving and life.
Contemporary families in the US today seldom fit this pattern, though a Pew Research study in 2018 found that about 64 million Americans live in multi-generation households. Multi-generation living is on the rise. COVID has increased it significantly.
Sirach speaks of authority and honor. The meaning here is not about “power” but about a sense of order. Whether a family is a single parent and child, a couple, a “nuclear family” of parents and minor children, a multi-generation family, or any other combination, the standard is both respect and honor for the authority of parents. This authority isn’t a matter of power, but of role or “office”. From the beginning, people have lived in families, and families have an order. “Honor your father and mother,” is the fourth commandment and the FIRST commandment of the seven which give God’s standards for us as we live with each other. Today’s first reading calls us to remember this and ask ourselves: how do we live this?
Colossians 3:12-21
The reading from Colossians adds the next piece of recommended practice for families: practicing virtue with each other: “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” We all know how much better the day is when, at home, everyone (or maybe even someone) is actively working as a thermostat instead of a thermometer. Compassion (feeling with) often expressed as mercy (unmerited favor) leads the way. People are kind. Egos disappear. Little and big people respond to each other with gentleness and patience.
The next phrase draws my attention, “bearing with one another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Forgiveness (meaning choosing to let go of blame, hurt, and entitlement) and a fruit of the Holy Spirit often described as “longsuffering” are recommended. That is “bearing with one another.”
How many extended families, gathering this Christmas, could benefit from taking that call to forgiveness and bearing with to heart!
There is a word which is often found in both popular psychology and Catholic theology of the family today: flourishing. Flourishing means “doing well, thriving, growing.” Popular psychologist Martin Seligman names five characteristics of flourishing families: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishments. My thirty-five years of work with families gives lots of evidence that when families practice compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, as they forgive one another and bear with one another, that those five characteristics of flourishing simply happen. When those virtues are absent—signs of flourishing are harder to see. God’s standards are for our good!
Gospel: Luke 2:41-52
Today’s Gospel gives evidence of how the Holy Family practiced the authority named in Sirach and the virtues named in Colossians.
Probably most of us who are parents have had some instance when a child was lost. The panic of it is horrific! I remember when one of mine as a toddler wandered only a few feet away, but behind a display, in a department store. When found, he was blithely sitting on a lawnmower going “Brrrrrm, brrrrrrm, brrrrrm,” so he was oblivious to my calling his name. He was only missing about 15 minutes, but I remember the panic to this day. Another child, as a teen, in the days before cell phones, fell asleep at a friend’s house one night without my knowing where he was. I combed the streets until I found him.
I love the story of this 5th Joyful Mystery of the Rosary because it reminds me that even a family without sin had struggles. The general explanation is that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus traveled to Jerusalem with others from Nazareth. Men walked with men. Women walked with women. At night individual families re-gathered. Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph. Joseph thought he was with Mary. It wasn’t until the end of a day’s journey that they both discovered they were mistaken! They turned around and retraced their steps, certainly with panic in their hearts. They returned to Jerusalem, began searching, but didn’t find him until the third day. Jesus, without sin, but with a fully human adolescent’s self-absorption, was not even thinking of their worry. He was talking theology with Jewish scribes and Pharisees. He was about his heavenly Father’s business—forgetful of the need to let his earthly parents know where he was and what he was doing! How like our own children!!!
Mary’s admonition, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety,” must have had an effect, because Jesus went home with his parents and was obedient to them without any further incidents of adolescent oblivion.
Applications for Today
So, the Scriptures today give us guidance:
- Adults have authority and responsibility to lead families in ways that care for each person.
- To flourish, families need to practice caring behaviors and virtues. They need to bear with each other and forgive each other for the times when people fail to practice caring.
- When inevitable crises come, families need to face the crisis, and use authority and virtues to work it through.
Which Scripture, which guidance is God giving you this Christmas week-end? Our families, like a bouquet of winter evergreens, combine to make a beautiful bouquet for the Lord. Prickly cedar, stiff-stemmed pine, flamboyant nandina, poised magnolia—all have their place in our families, all call us to learn to love God’s way. As the various members of our families do the same: each in his/her own way calls us to “bear with,” to blend with, to make a beautiful arrangement of diversity for the Lord.
Prayer:
Thank You, Lord, for Your model of Your Holy Family. I ask for heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. And bearing with, Lord. Bearing with is my growth point today. You bore with Your parents’ lack of understanding of Your need to be in Your Father’s house. They bore with You. You learned from them; they learned from You. May all of us learn from each other, submit to each other, yet also always to You, so we may grow in Love in Your design.
